Late in the day on New Year's Eve, the Bush administration quietly delivered a devastating blow against marine mammal conservation and protection by making the popular "dolphin-safe" tuna label virtually meaningless. The weakened standards will allow fishing boats to chase, harass and encircle dolphins while still earning the dolphin-safe label. Animal advocates and U.S. consumers have vowed to boycott if legal measures to overturn this decision are not successful.

The decision to weaken current dolphin-safe standards was made based on a finding that the use of purse seine nets to deliberately chase and net dolphins in order to catch the tuna that swim beneath has "no significant adverse impacts" on depleted dolphin populations. Earth Island Institute (EII), along with a coalition of environmental and animal welfare groups, filed a lawsuit within hours of the announcement to challenge this decision.

"The Bush administration is selling out dolphins in order to reward Mexican tuna millionaires. If the Secretary's decision is left intact, 20,000 to 40,000 dolphins each year will be sacrificed, and falsely labeled Mexican tuna will be on U.S. markets as 'dolphin safe'. We cannot allow that to occur," said David Phillip, director of Earth Island Institute's Marine Mammal Project.

The lawsuit brought by EII, et al will be heard in March at which time a final decision will be made concerning the integrity of the dolphin-safe label.

The dolphin-safe label was created in the late 1980's in response to pressure from animal welfare organizations and consumers who were concerned with dolphin injuries and death caused by certain tuna fishing practices. Tuna that was labeled dolphin-safe assured consumers that no dolphin was chased, harassed or netted during the fishing process. Following the creation of the labels, the entire U.S. tuna fleet adopted dolphin-safe fishing practices.

The U.S. government has been under increasing pressure from Mexico and other Latin American countries to weaken the dolphin-safe label. The new reduced regulations would allow them to once again be competitive in the US market, despite the fact that they have not changed their fishing practices. Mexico has gone so far as to threaten the U.S. on the grounds that U.S. dolphin protection laws violate free trade as required by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

To learn the latest developments and find out what you can do to protect dolphins, visit EII's website at www.earthisland.org.